Boston, Related Buy Big Development Rights for Eighth Avenue Office Building

If their paper trail is any evidence, the ungodly economy is not preventing Mort Zuckerman and Stephen Ross from moving forward with plans to build an enormous office tower at 740 Eighth Avenue.

Word of the tower has been seeping into the news since last year, when Boston Properties and Related Companies revealed they were putting together the project’s footprint by buying out about six property owners at a reported price of $350 million.

The tower—on the east side of Eighth Avenue, between 45th and 46th streets, alongside the Imperial Theater and the Music Box—could rival the neighboring SJP Properties’ 11 Times Square and the New York Times tower in size at a possible 1 million square feet. 

On Oct. 23, the developers filed requests to transfer a total of 120,319 square feet of development rights from the Jacobs, Booth and Broadhurst theaters, all owned by the Shubert Organization. The development rights would, according to the documents, be used “to construct an office building.”

The developers also requested “a special permit to build a 406-space attended public parking lot” on the site.

Neither developer’s reps would comment for this story. But sources say that  Related and Boston have promised a local parking lot owner a garage in the new tower in exchange for the right to buy his property.

The Department of City Planning is currently reviewing the applications. The seven-month land-use review process is slated to begin some time in the coming months. So the tower, if completed, might just rise in tandem with the economy.

drubinstein@observer.com